"Such
attacks are unacceptable and undermine the serious efforts by the
international community to improve the situation in Gaza. All parties
must exercise restraint, avoid escalation and prevent incidents that
jeopardize the lives of Palestinians and Israelis."

UN chief Middle East envoy Nickolay
Mladenov

"[The Al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds
Brigades blamed Israel for starting the
latest round of aggression, claiming they had cooperated in launching the
attacks because Israel's] crimes could not be tolerated in any way."

"[If Israel continued to attack Gaza then] all resistance options remain open no matter what the cost."

Joint statement

Israeli
tanks take up positions along the border with the Gaza strip, on
Israel-Gaza Border, Tuesday, May 29, 2018. The Israeli military said
three soldiers were wounded by fire from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
Tensions have soared over the past two months as the Palestinians have
held mass protests... (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Border communities as always, are in the direct line of rocket fire from Gaza. Sderot, always the first to be targeted and hit was both this time around, with one rocket that the defence system hadn't intercepted, landing in a kindergarten playground just shortly before the arrival of the children for their day's activity. Residents of Sderot have all of 15 seconds from the time they hear the attack alert, to find themselves in a shelter and remain there for the duration, until the attacks conclude.

The world's attention has been turned in the last month, to the border between Israel and Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians were encouraged to congregate en masse to demand entry through the border with the view of returning to their 'ancestral' villages and towns. These would most certainly not be the original inhabitants of those towns and villages but their succeeding generations, all of whom to a total of approximately six million from the original approximately 700,000 who fled, are recognized by UNHCR as 'refugees'.

Understandably, their living situation in Gaza is sub-par by any measure. But this is not the responsibility of Israel, since Israel long since withdrew all its settlers and military from Gaza unilaterally, leaving the Strip to Palestinians to govern for themselves. Hamas's violent takeover of Gaza from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority led to the border being closed to free entry and exit in reflection of the Hamas charter outlining its intention to destroy Israel and slaughter Jews.

What nation would allow itself to be readily infiltrated by those dedicated to its destruction?

Hamas has been so single-mindedly absorbed and dedicated to its promise to eradicate Israel from the Middle East that it devised a plan to manipulate the West's reactions to the plight of Palestinians living a constricted life of isolation and privation all of which has been the result of the terrorist group's deliberate actions in provoking Israel by rocket bombardment of its citizens, and habitually using international funding for the purpose of building underground tunnels into Israel for terrorist purposes.

A complete underground city exists beneath Gaza City, where Hamas operatives and leaders are able to shield themselves from the effects of the IDF's return volleys when Hamas targets Israel from populated areas. The greater the number of Palestinian casualties and deaths, the better the public relations accusations against a heartless Israel resonates with the West, swift to condemn the country that is attacked and seeks to protect its people, preferring to sympathize with the Palestinians who allow themselves to be manipulated into threatening Israel's survival.

Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike in the Gaza
Strip, as seen from the Israeli side of the border between Israel and
Gaza, May 29, 2018.
(photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)

Palestinians have been so indoctrinated into a pathology of hatred for Israel and Jews it would take a miracle for them to profess they would far prefer to reach a peace agreement and live alongside Israel in their own sovereign state with no interest in attacking a neighbour state, one that provides them, in fact, with potable water and energy, opening the border crossings to transport trucks that daily bring in medicines, food and fundamental necessities.

When there are shortages of electricity in Gaza, it is because the Palestinian Authority whose relations with Hamas is toxic, seeks to punish Gazans.

The critical shortage of infrastructure and housing in Gaza, is entirely attributable to Hamas's use of building materials and cement in the construction of its costly, invasive and threatening tunnels. The dire necessity to build and operationally maintain sewage treatment plants is ignored, leaving Gaza to dump 100 million liters of raw sewage directly into the Mediterranean on a daily basis. The prevailing current ushers most of the sewage in a northward flow to the beach town of Ashkelon.

Israel's second-largest desalination plant in Ashkelon produces fifteen percent of the country's drinking water from that source which must struggle to clean out the Gaza sewage from its filters in the desalination plant. Gaza itself, drawing water from its underground aquifer is heading for water shortages: "So the aquifer has gotten drained and seawater has seeped into it, and many people are now drinking water that is both salty and polluted with sewage", pointed out Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of EcoPeace Middle East.

The potential for typhoid and cholera erupting and spreading as a result of the fetid water is yet another crisis situation waiting to happen. "Then you could see two million [Gazans] coming to the border fence with Israel with empty buckets, begging for clean water. We're heading in that direction", promised Bromberg.

The irony here is that should those Gazans plead with the Palestinian Authority to rescue them from their lack of potable water bind, the response could be less than forthcoming, reflecting the disabling hatred between it and Hamas.

Children and old people are most at risk of dangerous pathogens on Gaza beaches and water. (Picture: EPA/MOHAMMED SABER)